Pottery-making at Ularice, Bosnia 1990 - RJC film6

Ularice is a dispersed village close to the city of Doboj on the southern edge of the Posavina region in northern Bosnia, an area of rolling hills covered in oak and beach forest, where not cleared for agricultural use. Numerous streams flow in minor valleys within the hills, draining to larger rivers such as the Usora, which flows past Ularice on its way to a confluence with the Bosna near Doboj. Ularice was one of several places in the locality producing pottery until well into the 20th century, but is now alone, with production in the hands of the last two potters, Stjepan Bejić in the hamlet of Bejići and Pero Gavran at Rajkovići. Ivan Bejić and Mate Gavran, their fathers, were working along with another potter, Andrej Rajkovac, during the period of filming in 1989-90.
Pots are made using a local light-firing clay tempered with river sand, which is mixed into an extremely soft paste within the box-like wooden containers used to rehydrate the clay. They are then formed by ring-building and throwing, or ‘coil-thrown’, on small, proportionately very low wheels and fired in open fires fuelled with beach wood. In the past some potters worked for others on a piece-work basis. The pots are quenched when fresh from the fire in a mixture of flour and water which darkens them, sometimes imparting a mottled appearance. Although both current potters maintain traditional practices, Pero has electrified his wheel in order to work more quickly, producing much greater volumes of pottery than his neighbour, who still works on a traditional wooden hand-wheel.
The Croats, or Bosnian Catholics of Ularice maintained good relations with the local Bosnian Muslim population during the 1992-5 war and have continued to sell the bulk of their pots in the local, predominantly Muslim-populated markets of Jelah and Tešanj, where demand for traditional cooking pots continues to be high. The dramatic reduction in numbers of both Catholics and Muslims in the greater part of the Posavina caused by the 1992-5 war, and continued exodus to Western Europe of Bosnian Croats with EU passports, means that the longer- term existence of Catholic community in this part of Bosnia is under threat and, with it, that of the pottery-making tradition recorded here. Despite continuing demand for pots produced at Ularice, neither of the current potters has a family member willing to continue the work, with all their five children living abroad and not intending to return.

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